Turki versions belonging to the Bible Society. This last proved a valuable aid in clearing up obscure passages, and in deciphering ill-spelled and badly written names of places and tribes. It is the work of an intelligent man, who knew the countries his author wrote about, and who read what he translated with judgment and discrimination. He constantly interpolates a word or two, or a sentence, in order to make the meaning clearer, and frequently spells the names of places in Turki-speaking countries, with vowel points, and in so clear a way that they can be recognised, if not identified. This is a service few Asiatic translators, or copyists, are able to render to the modern European reader; and the only pity is that the anonymous scholar was unable to do for the Tibetan names, what he accomplished for the Turki ones. He nowhere gives his name, but the end of his work is subscribed by a line as follows: "I completed this translation in the year 1263, Jamád II. 22nd, in the town of Khotan"—i.e., in the year 1845 A.D.
A few words may be necessary to explain how this English version has come to see the light, and how it is that it should have been undertaken by one who has not enough Persian to be his own translator. My attention was first called to the Tarikh-i-Rashidi as far back as 1877, by my friend the late Mr. R. B. Shaw, who had used portions of it when he himself was living and travelling in the countries it describes. He was enthusiastic in his admiration of the author's intelligence, and of the value of the work as a "guide book" to Eastern Turkistan and the surrounding regions. He had intended, as I always understood, to take up the translation of it after completing his Turki vocabulary; but in June 1879 he died, while on service in Burma, leaving the vocabulary only just finished.[1]
For some years after this, I endeavoured to find a copy,
- ↑ I may remark here, that since completing the present version, and indeed, within the last few weeks, I have been favoured by Capt. F. E. Younghusband, and others of Mr. Shaw's friends, with an opportunity of examining some of the papers which he left. Among these are several unpublished extracts from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, as well as some more complete sections of a rare Turki work called the Tazkira-i-Khwájagán ('The Memoirs of the Khwájas') which forms—from a chronological point of view-a continuation of Mirza Haidar's history. The translations from the latter work were evidently intended, by Mr. Shaw, for early publication, but the fragments from the Tarikh-i-Rashidi appear only to have been preliminary studies destined to serve, at some future time, as a groundwork for a more complete translation.
